Article
BAMOS
Sep 2018
Presentations at the Sonifying Climate Change In Australia Seminar’. Left: Head of the Sir Zelman School of Music, Cat
Hope and Hub Director, David Holmes. Right: Ailie Gallant, Hub Deputy Director, Paul Holper, Scientell Director, with Cat
Hope and David Holmes.
Over two years, the Hub will deliver 2,496 climate graphics
packages for the 26 mastheads of Leader Community
Newspapers across metropolitan Melbourne which have 1.6
million weekly readers. The packages will include 25–50 year
climate graphics based on data sourced from 11 metropolitan
weather stations, as well as a 170-word dedicated climate
column which will provide space for explaining the graphed
trends and making comparisons with other areas around
Melbourne. Information on the project can be found here.
Radio
The Hub is also leading a new project, ‘Sonifying Climate Change
in Australia’, that was recently awarded $20,000 through the
Monash/Penn State Collaborative Development Grant Scheme.
Dr David Holmes will lead the project at Monash along with
team members Prof. Christian Jakob (Monash School of Earth,
Atmosphere and Environment) and Prof. Cat Hope, (Head of the
Sir Zelman Cowan School of Music). At Penn State, the Hub is
working with Prof. Mark Ballora (Music Technology), as well as
Prof Jenni Evans (Meteorology and Atmospheric Science).
rainfall and longitude and latitude every six hours. This data
are processed by algorithmic composition and audio synthesis
within a platform called ‘supercollider’ to produce distinct
sound sequences. Thus far, this process has only been used for
sonifying cyclones, but the Hub is also looking at the possibility
of sonifying other kinds of storms and heatwaves.
On Monday 27th of August, the Hub ran a seminar exploring
the potential research outcomes of this project, such as the
possibility of bringing climate science to new audiences
through sampling in music and real-time audio warnings
during extreme weather events. The first-ever sonification of
an Australian cyclone was also shared during the seminar. You
can hear this sonification, which compresses the data from the
15-day lifetime of Cyclone Debbie (2017) into a 1 minute 22
second soundtrack, at this link. Following the seminar, there has
been considerable media interest in the sonification research,
and the Cyclone Debbie audio track has now been played on 4
Queensland radio stations, along with detailed interviews with
David Holmes. You can hear one of the interviews (with ABC
Cairns) by clicking the button below.
‘Sonifying Climate Change in Australia’ brings together music
specialists, communications scholars and climate scientists
to create unique sound tracks that enable us to hear extreme
weather. The soundtracks are created by tracking air pressure,
Sonifying Climate Change In Australia Seminar. Left to right: Ailie Gallant Hub Deputy Director, and Paul Holper,
Scientell Director, with Cat Hope, Head of the Sir Zelman School of Music, and David Holmes, Hub Director.
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